Commentary: Two Lorenzos from Mexico. One fulfilled his American dream. ICE killed the other

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Set us as preferred They were Mexican immigrants, both named Lorenzo.They came to this country without papers as teenagers.Lack of legal status didn’t stop them from building beautiful lives — a wife, a home, a loving dog.

A blue-collar job that paid the bills, weekend carne asadas with friends and family, children who followed their father’s example of hard work.The Lorenzos enjoyed the fruits of their labor in their adopted land, even as they battled to become American citizens while politicians demonized immigrants as invaders and worse.Lorenzo Arellano arrived in the United States in 1968 and didn’t get his citizenship until nearly 30 years later.

Back then, the path to naturalization was far easier.Lorenzo Salgado Araujo arrived in the early 1990s, when those opportunities were becoming severely limited.Lorenzo Arellano is my father, a happily retired truck driver living in Anaheim.Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, who ran his own construction crew, was on his way to a job with his brother and two other men when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot him dead on July 7 in Houston.

World & Nation Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican-born Texas builder killed in a confrontation with ICE officers, is remembered as a devoted family man who got up before dawn and worked hard.When I see a photo of Salgado Araujo beaming in front of a cake with the number 52 on it at the well-kept home he built with his own hands, I’m reminded that we’ll be celebrating my father’s 75th birthday next month.When I see video of Salgado Araujo’s feet twitching on the ground with two ICE agents next to him as he bleeds out and moans for help, I weep.Only geography, age and Donald Trump separated the Lorenzos.

Even their children — he had three boys, while my father had two boys and two girls — are similar.The Salgado Ar...